Original air date: 5/13/2007
Production code: JABF-12
Santa's Little Helper becomes a police dog while Bart gets a pet snake.
Tropes:
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In Bart's fantasy that depicts Santa's Little Helper as RoboDog, Bart is cornered by Pinhead, Jason Vorhees, and a math book.
- Artistic License – Biology: Strangles has a pair of Cute Little Fangs sticking out of his mouth. Pythons do not possess fangs since they are not venomous. He's also shown blinking a few times, something which real-life snakes can't do since they don't have eyelids. He's also green, a color large pythons don't come in.note Constrictor snakes also don't kill via strangulation; they squeeze so hard that their prey's own blood pressure kills them.
- Berserk Button: Hurting Bart proves to be one for Strangles. Homer's routine strangling of Bart prompts the snake to strangle him MUCH worse in return.
- Black Comedy: Strangles devoured Martin's rabbit. It hopped around in his stomach before being dissolved.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: The man who won the cornucopia contest by stuffing his horn with a piece of styrofoam.
- Continuity Nod: Homer wears a sports bra because, according to Marge, he has trouble getting upstairs without it. In "Yokel Chords" Marge spent the money she was saving for him to get a breast reduction on a therapy appointment for Bart, and in "Marge Gamer" Homer can be seen wearing a sports bra, which he rips off after ripping his shirt off.
- Didn't Think This Through: Wiggum gives the trainee police dogs the entire first week off, because they’ll be getting two extra days off regardless… and one week alter chastises the students for allowing that, since it’s delayed their progress.
- Dungeon Bypass:
- Defied for Homer, who tried to do this to get out of the corn maze, but apparently it had been lined with an electric fence to ensure people got out properly.
- Played straight later on when Santa's Little Helper found Stephen Hawking while looking for Homer, who declared the maze too difficult for him and used a helicopter in his chair to fly out.
- Epic Fail: Somehow, while trying to head back to the car, Homer ended up getting the family trapped in the corn maze.
- Lost in the Maize: The episode opens with the titular family getting lost in a maze of corn, and Homer finds out they can't bypass it because of a fence that has been put up to make sure people get out the correct way. Later, it's revealed that even Stephen Hawking (of all people) can't figure how to get out of the maze.
- Loyal Animal Companion: Strangles' dialogue shows how loyal he became towards Bart.
- Meat-O-Vision: Strangles sees a computer mouse as an actual mouse and tries to eat it, followed by the whole computer.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Santa's Little Helper feels bad after he bites Bart.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Strangles accidentally knocks down a set of chemicals that when mixed together create a toxic cloud that almost kills Bart when he stays in the school looking for Strangles.
- Off on a Technicality: Snake is allowed to go free because the paperwork was filled in by Santa’s Little Helper, making it look atrocious and illegible.
- Papa Wolf: Homer strangling Bart prompts Strangles (who is a rather large python) to strangle him MUCH worse in Bart's defence.
- Police Are Useless: When Homer is lost in the corn maze, Chief Wiggum intends to send one of his police dogs to find him, only for her to have recently given birth to a litter of puppies. Not only is it irresponsible for the police to have not had her spayed, but Wiggum also decides to throw a party over the litter rather than send a different dog into the maze, to Marge's annoyance.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode's title is a reference to Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.
- Sentenced Without Trial: The family goes to a harvest fest and witnesses a cornucopia contest. Marge accidentally exposes that one contestant has stuffed his with styrofoam and is dragged away. Marge states she can testify at the trial then a farmer pops up and tells her there won't be one.
- Serious Business: Apparently, the farmers sees cheating in a cornucopia contest as a crime that amounts to death.
- Snakes Are Sinister: Averted. Despite his rather menacing appearance, Bart's pet snake Strangles is completely loyal to him. When Homer strangles Bart, Strangles strangles him back, the mix of chemicals he knocked over in the school was just an accident and when Bart is in danger, Strangles comes to rescue him. The worst thing he does is eat Martin's pet rabbit, which he did with Bart's approval and it was pretty hurt when Bart chose Santa's Little Helper over him.
- Stealing the Credit: Chief Wiggum takes credit when Bart is rescued from the toxic cloud.
- Stealth Pun: The music that plays when Santa's Little Helper searches for Homer in the corn maze? "Freak on a Leash" by Korn.
- Vigilante Execution: Implied to be done to the guy who won a cornucopia contest by stuffing his horn with styrofoam.Marge: I can testify at the trial!
Random Farmer: Ain't gon' be no trial. - Undying Loyalty: Bart doesn't hold a grudge against Santa's Little Helper for biting him and still wants to keep him despite this.
- He ends choosing him over Strangles to save him from a toxic cloud the former accidentally caused.